This Week

"Pro-life" violence: Here we go again

When abortionist Barnett Slepian was murdered by a vigilante who shot a bullet through his kitchen window, pro-choicers mourned his death. So did thoughtful pro-lifers, for both biblical and historical reasons; in recent history, some of the most effective pro-life spokesmen have been former abortionists-and no one knows when God will change the heart of either a thief on a cross or an abortionist in his killing fields. Furthermore, it doesn't help the pro-life cause to create martyrs for the pro-abortion lobby, which enjoys this era's version of "waving the bloody shirt": blaming Christians and pro-lifers for an abortionist's death. Dr. Slepian's mourners painted him as a loving ob-gyn. The New York Times' account of his funeral played up quotes that played down his role as an abortionist. "This man was about children," said one mourner whose two children were delivered by Dr. Slepian. "This man was not about abortions." Pro-aborts, it seems, may still have a sense of shame. Even President Clinton's letter to the family said nothing about abortion: "This cowardly and brutal act has robbed your family of a beloved husband and devoted father and it has robbed your community of a skilled doctor and cherished friend." Others were more pointed in pointing the finger. "The hate-filled words and deeds of religious terrorists culminated in the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian," said the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, chair of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. In language similar to that heard after the death of gay collegiate Matthew Shepard, she called pro-lifers accomplices to murder. "This person was aided and abetted by many others who are sustained by a climate of hatred, intolerance, and fear," Ms. Hancock said. NOW president Patricia Ireland blamed pro-life politicians. "These terrorists have friends in high places," she exclaimed. "Their right-wing sympathizers in state legislatures and Congress give credence to their tactics by creating legislation to restrict or outright ban abortion. These measures will ultimately be as deadly for women as bombs or bullets." Pro-lifer Judie Brown of the American Life League took a more thoughtful approach, noting that the assassin operated not from a pro-life, but a pro-choice worldview. "Such violence against a fellow human being can never be justified," she said. "This tragedy is but another example of the disrespect for human life that has permeated our society." Four other abortionists in upstate New York and Canada have been hit by snipers since 1997, though this was the first fatal attack. Authorities would not say whether Dr. Slepian's death was related to the other shootings, which also involved shots fired through windows.

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Bitter harvest

Russia has formally asked the United States for food aid for the winter, according to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Meanwhile, hungry Russians are ignoring the resources right over their heads. A roof garden project begun in St. Petersburg by the Florida-based ministry ECHO is falling on hard times just when residents need it most. ECHO director Martin Price said the rooftop project, which once grew several acres' worth of produce, has gained disfavor with the rise of private ownership of apartments and the buildings. "Owners worry about a leaking roof or other problems," he said. "Ironically, this is the type of project that probably would do better under communism." State authorities still allow the largest rooftop plot to flourish-atop St. Petersburg's main prison.

Taking a byte out of crime

A new anti-cyberporn law called COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, goes into effect this month. It restricts American commercial porn sites from showing adult material to minors without verifying their age. Naturally, the ACLU and other usual suspects are suing, saying this violates free speech. COPA is one of the mildest anti-porn laws ever devised. It doesn't actually ban any pornography. It doesn't even affect porn distributors who aren't on the Web, aren't in the United States, or aren't charging money. Nevertheless, civil libertarians call it censorship. The sort of smut affected by COPA are free images given away to entice people to pay money for more pictures. While pay sites usually require customers to be over 18, the entry pages are usually available for all to see. "Pornographers are shamelessly enticing our children with free 'teaser' pornographic images," said Jan LaRue, Director of Legal Studies at the Family Research Council. COPA forces porn sites to perform the virtual equivalent of carding their customers, the same job that convenience store clerks perform when someone asks for a dirty magazine. Usually this involves typing in a credit card number. Legal penalties include up to $50,000 in fines and a six-month prison sentence. The ACLU and others claim COPA would have a chilling effect on the Internet and cause mainstream journalists to face prosecution for publishing the steamy stuff in the Starr Report. That's why they tried to stop its enforcement by filing a lawsuit in a Philadelphia federal district court one day after COPA was signed by President Clinton. "There is this huge category of information out there that has value to adults but lacks value to minors," says staff attorney Ann Beeson. While the ACLU predicts victory, COPA may be a hard law to beat. Its specifications were based on the Supreme Court's decision overturning the Communications Decency Act, which banned all indecent material from the Internet altogether. Since the law was carefully and narrowly written to the high court's earlier specifications, its supporters predict they will pull an upset victory when the case goes to trial.

Technical difficulties

The Dallas-based Cathedral of Hope, America's largest homosexual megachurch, is suing Chicago superstation WGN-TV because the station wouldn't run the Cathedral's infomercial titled "Holy Homosexuals." Among other cable networks only VH-1 would agree to air the program-but only before sunup. WGN allegedly reneged on a $12,000 contract to show the program because it was too controversial. Losing the TV time freed up an extra $12,000 to help church officials pour on the PR, including a well-attended press conference and video news release. The story hit the wires immediately and The New York Times and Chicago Tribune carried stories. Proskauer Rose, one of Manhattan's largest law firms, filed the congregation's lawsuit. "We wanted mostly to reach out to lesbian and gay teenagers but also people living in rural areas, to tell them there is this possibility that you can be gay and Christian," said Michael Piazza, the group's senior pastor.

Windows Y2K

Microsoft may take a beating from Janet Reno in the federal government's anti-trust lawsuit, but outside the courtroom the company is ready to cash in on the millennium bug. Windows NT, Microsoft's business-oriented operating system, has been rechristened Windows 2000. The Redmond, Wash., empire is still fighting its own Y2K battle (see Publick Occurrences, April 25). Not that Windows 2000 is in great shape. Originally known as Windows NT 5.0, it has faced numerous non-Y2K bugs and delays that have held it back. This change plays into corporate demand for new computer software that will be safe from the millennium bug. If company computers don't know that the year 2000 comes after 1999, they could lose money. Windows 2000 is the biggest of a swarm of Y2K-related product announcements aimed at corporate America. "The year 2000 is a big issue with our customers,'' says Microsoft VP Brad Chase. "It's important we have a product in an era when customers are thinking about Y2K."

WORLD in brief

Enjoy your visitBritain's high court ruled Oct. 28 that Augusto Pinochet is immune from prosecution in British courts. It ordered the British government to pay the former Chilean dictator's legal fees of $560,000 after British authorities acted upon two Spanish arrest warrants and sought Gen. Pinochet's extradition to face charges of murder, kidnapping, and torturing political opponents during his 17-year dictatorship. Enabling the new holocaustGermany's highest court ordered Bavaria to join the rest of the country and permit abortion clinics to operate. A Bavarian law prohibiting the clinics was overruled by the Constitutional Court, which said the law was detrimental to women's health by forcing them to travel to get an abortion.

NATO brinkmanship

With the finger of NATO poised over the trigger, Serbian forces battling ethnic Albanians pulled back from Kosovo. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic gave a face-saving nod to Western negotiators, who had promised NATO air strikes on Serb targets if Mr. Milosevic did not relent and bring his troops home. Officials from the U.S. government and the United Nations said the diplomacy might have averted a wintertime tragedy. The number of ethnic Albanian refugees living in the woods without shelter has dropped from 50,000 in early September to about 10,000. They also estimate that 300,000 people who fled their homes when Serbs began their offensive against the province's ethnic-Albanian majority in February have returned to villages. Most are living with friends or relatives and some have gone home. Staff for Christian agencies serving in Kosovo report that many of their workers never left. Mennonite Central Committee helpers ignored evacuation orders for Americans living in the area and have continued to prepare and distribute refugee kits to homeless Albanians. Bread of Life, a humanitarian agency of evangelical churches based in Belgrade, also delivered aid in spite of obvious political dangers for Serb-based workers. "A Christian's best witness to unbelieving neighbors is calmness in the face of danger," said Bread of Life's Beba Varga.

Technical difficulties

The Dallas-based Cathedral of Hope, America's largest homosexual megachurch, is suing Chicago superstation WGN-TV because the station wouldn't run the Cathedral's infomercial titled "Holy Homosexuals." Among other cable networks only VH-1 would agree to air the program-but only before sunup. WGN allegedly reneged on a $12,000 contract to show the program because it was too controversial. Losing the TV time freed up an extra $12,000 to help church officials pour on the PR, including a well-attended press conference and video news release. The story hit the wires immediately and The New York Times and Chicago Tribune carried stories. Proskauer Rose, one of Manhattan's largest law firms, filed the congregation's lawsuit. "We wanted mostly to reach out to lesbian and gay teenagers but also people living in rural areas, to tell them there is this possibility that you can be gay and Christian," said Michael Piazza, the group's senior pastor.

Nation in brief

We want PCsDespite a struggling global economy, personal computer sales continued to grow during the third quarter of 1998, according to two market-research companies. The companies released data showing that more than 22.6 million personal computers-including 9.5 million in the United States-were shipped during the third quarter of 1998, an increase of 13.7 percent over the same period last year. Meanwhile, IBM unveiled its new "Pacific Blue" computer, the world's fastest at 3.9 trillion calculations per second. Someone using a handheld calculator would have to punch numbers for 63,000 years to do what the new supercomputer can do in one second. Be afraid; be very afraidDocuments from the Paula Jones lawsuit, unsealed last week, revealed that Monica Lewinsky's lawyers feared federal perjury charges for their client. The attorneys pleaded with Judge Susan Webber Wright to block Miss Lewinsky's testimony so she wouldn't be forced to invoke her right against self-incrimination. The documents also show that shortly after President Clinton pledged full cooperation in the Lewinsky case in late January, his attorney objected to Kenneth Starr's efforts to obtain data from Mrs. Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. Can't be too carefulAn 8-year-old Oregon boy was suspended from school last week for singing a violent parody of a Barney & Friends song. Barney, a purple dinosaur seen on PBS, is best known for the ditty: "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family." The version sung by Douglas Mansfield III began: "I hate you, you hate me." Then he added "Let's kill -," filling in the names of classmates at Schirle Elementary School. Following school shootings across the nation, the school has maintained a zero-tolerance policy regarding violence and threats.

Refilling the trough

As Washington last week formally handed over another $18 billion to the International Monetary Fund, two more countries reached out their hands for global bailout money. The ever-unstable Russian government gave the IMF a plan for pulling itself out of its economic crisis. This blueprint, full of price and currency controls, was a condition for getting another injection from the $22.6 billion bailout package that was negotiated over the summer. The Russians say they need cash to pay their bills. The government is so desperate to save the ruble that it plans to prevent stores from setting prices in dollars or any currency other than rubles. Also, exporters would be required to sell 75 percent of profits to the state for rubles. "Russia at this stage needs state regulation," says Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. Meanwhile, Brazil unveiled its own plan for a $30 billion package from the IMF. That scheme involves tax increases and spending cuts that are expected to slow economic growth and raise unemployment. Nevertheless, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin supports the aid, saying it is essential for the government to implement the program "promptly and convincingly." Ironically, Mr. Rubin also blames the global economic crisis on the industrial nations that extend excessive credit without properly weighing the risks. The biggest example is the Thai baht. When it collapsed in July 1997, it took many currencies and other financial markets across Southeast Asia with it. Financial turmoil soon spread around the globe. "Thailand was simply the first country in which financial institutions erupted," Mr. Rubin told the Conference of the Americas. "This crisis is the result of problems that developed over many years." He explained, "One difference now is how much it all matters in the interdependent global economy, where decisions can affect not only the country involved but, to a far greater extent than before, other countries around the globe."

Caught in the middle

Back in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat faced the aftermath to their historic peace agreement reached in Wye, Md., a week ago that was neither peaceful nor agreeable. From the ultra-right parties, which form part of Mr. Netanyahu's coalition government, opposition to his concessions to cede West Bank territory to Palestinians may force the prime minister to call early elections. The outcry back home forced Mr. Netanyahu to postpone a meeting of cabinet ministers scheduled to vote on the Wye Memorandum. Jewish settlers demonstrated against Mr. Netanyahu outside his residence and during a Likud rally, reminding Shin Bet, the security force, of the scenario that led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's prime minister who was killed by a Jewish extremist in 1995 after also reaching a land-for-peace accord with the Palestinians. For Mr. Arafat, upholding his end of the bargain looked equally difficult. Palestinian security forces are under a deadline to submit a paper to the CIA this week outlining plans for rooting out terrorist cells. The U.S. intelligence agency will oversee the terrorist cleanup, but a car bomb attack on Oct. 29 proved how high the bar is.